The tree of English lexis produces many and varied fruit, and some are quite unexpected. Some are old and overripe to the point of… not rotting, but developing a dense, aged form that has made a mush of the original: a timeless tradition with the richness of antiquity. Others are strange blends and borrowings: they seem like gifts of the ancient but they are more grifts and grafts of the moderns. You may eat all day for many years of the many different fruits this tree bears and still, on some bright day, taste not one but two that you do not recall knowing before.

And so it was yesterday for me. I was wandering through the buzzing hay-meadow of Twitter and I saw a short sequence of tweets by an Italian friend, Costanza: Continue reading →

I make audio versions of all my blog posts and put them on Patreon for all subscribers who pay $2 or more per month. But occasionally I make one free for everyone. Today’s is one of those. As a bonus, it’s the audio version of a subscribers-only blog post: chont, text version, is available only for those who subscribe for at least $1 per month. So you get to hear it for free… but not read it.

What is chont? A satisfying sound. Here is the sound of chont, with lots of chonts.

I’ve recorded my 12 Gifts for Writers as an audiobook, in separate chapters and as one big 64-minute binge-listen. It’s available now to everyone who sponsors me on Patreon at the $2-a-month level or higher, even for just one month! I’m making chapter 11 (“Everyone’s a writer”) free for everyone… just as a teaser. Here it is.

I’m audio-recording every one of my blog posts now… but just for subscribers at the $2 per month level. Would you rather listen to five minutes of lush words instead of just seeing them on the screen? Stop by patreon.com/sesquiotic and sign up at the Word Lush level. Over the course of each month, for the cost of a coffee, you get an hour’s worth of listening. Here’s a free sample.

Last year I did an article on what the turkey is called in different languages – and why. This year we (specifically my splendid producer at The Week, Lauren Hansen, and I) made an audio version of it. So you get to hear me saying the words for ‘turkey’ in all those different languages. Give it a listen!

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Angry Sub-Editor
Patrick Neylan, Eeditor of business reports. Permanently angry about the abuse of English, maths and logic. Terms and conditions: by reading this blog you accept that all opinions expressed herein will henceforth be your opinions.

The Economist "Johnson" language blog
In this blog, named for the dictionary-maker Samuel Johnson, correspondents write about the effects that the use (and sometimes abuse) of language have on politics, society and culture around the world